Swiss Voters Split on Curbing Immigration: Projection

By Catherine Bosley -
Feb 9, 2014

Swiss voters were divided on whether
to approve an upper limit on immigration with the result still
too close to call, according to an initial projection.

Voters were split, with 50.4 percent for the measure, which
requires the government to set an upper limit for foreigners, a
measure that could potentially thwart the ability of companies
to hire top talent abroad, an SRF television projection showed
as of 4 p.m. local time today. That’s within the 0.7 percent
margin of error, SRF said. The results for the cantons of Bern
and Zurich have yet to be announced.

“It’s going to be a nail biter,” Urs Schwaller, member of
parliament for the Christian Democrats CVP, which recommended
rejecting the initiative, told SRF.

For the measure to pass, it must have a majority among the
country’s cantons as well as of the popular vote. According to
Claude Longchamp, head of pollster gfs.bern, the immigration
curb has achieved the requisite cantonal majority. The proposed
limits were supported by voters in the Italian-speaking region
of Ticino and in German speaking cantons, he said, adding that
voters in western Switzerland, the French-speaking part of the
country, opposed it.

The initiative “Against Mass Immigration” pitted
companies small and large against the euro-skeptic Swiss
People’s Party SVP. Corporations argued they need top talent
from around the world to maintain their competitive edge, while
critics, many of them members of the SVP, said the flood of
newcomers is leading to worse working conditions, crowded trains
and a housing shortage.

Immigration has supported Switzerland’s economic growth,
and the EU bloc is the alpine country’s top export destination.
Roughly a fifth of Switzerland’s 8 million inhabitants come from
abroad.